


Destination Unknown

by kete



Series: Living Legend [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Fix-It, Gap Filler, Gen, M/M, Reunion, S3 didn't happen the way it did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:30:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1289584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kete/pseuds/kete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock comes home to an empty house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was betaed by the most lovely frozen_delight who turned my gobbledegook into readable English. I owe you a thousand thank-yous, dear!
> 
> Original texts from the show gratefully taken from Ariane DeVere's transcripts.
> 
> I also must thank all the wonderful meta-writers on tumblr and the fans discussing the show on IMDB and TwoP for igniting my thought processes.
> 
> Though it's not necessary, reading 'The Diogenes Club' and 'London and Elsewhere' may provide further insight into this version's backstory.
> 
> *****
> 
> Now available in Chinese thanks to the lovely Karoliner!
> 
> http://www.mtslash.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=117081
> 
> The site requires registration.  
> user: authors  
> password: 123456789
> 
> *****
> 
> There's also art for this story by the excellent cloudmelon on my tumblr: http://marybegone.tumblr.com/post/85303681741/he-could-hear-the-humming-even-from-afar-and-it

Journalists and photographers stood three-deep in front of New Scotland Yard's main entrance, as John Watson, coming from St. James's Park tube station, turned the corner of Dacre Street and slowly ambled to the side door where a uniformed policeman waited for him.

'Doctor Watson?' he said. 'Detective Chief Inspector Lestrade sent me to accompany you to the conference room.'

'Thank you,' John said. Two years. It had been two years since Sherlock's suicide and although investigations into his affairs went on for just a little more than ten months before it became clear that he was innocent in all cases, it had taken the authorities this long to finally decide that an official statement and an apology at a press conference were the way to go.

John had been furious about Lestrade's role in the whole farce of Sherlock's arrest and the way his men had handled Sherlock, but finally he realised that the man had had no choice but to obey direct orders from his superiors. Lestrade's unjust suspension did the rest. So John had made his peace with him. They'd even met for a pint a few times since.

Upon entering the conference room he came to an abrupt halt and stared at the screen behind the podium. A portrait of Sherlock – not the one with the hat – coat collar turned up and looking down at the assembly with the typical look of haughty disdain John knew so well, filled the screen. The upper left side of the blow-up was crossed with a black mourning band.

John lowered his head and stared at his shoes. Dear God, he could not bear to look at that face. Had Sherlock really looked like that? So pale? Such piercing silver eyes? Mop of dark curls softening his chiselled features. Pink, pink lips. Slightly opened mouth showing a hint of small, very white and slightly irregular teeth. John swallowed. Was that inappropriate, a man thinking about his flatmate's teeth? He had no idea any more. 

Memories of Sherlock flashed through his mind at the oddest times. Just details, like magnified cut-outs of photographs imbued with a significance he could not interpret. Long toes sensually curling and flexing into the soft leather of their sofa's arm rest. The wide-eyed orgasmic 'Oh!' when an epiphany hit home. Long white fingers steepled, the tips just touching his bottom lip. The lovely curve of a slender back exposed by a slipping bed sheet.

*****

Propriety was not a word easily associated with Sherlock. As evidenced by that memorable time when he'd requested to measure John's inside leg.

'No,' John said.

'Why not?'

'Because I don't want a bloke grabbing around between my legs.'

Sherlock stared at him. 'Your tailor would do it.'

'I don't have a tailor.'

'But, you're a doctor, you have to touch people in intimate places all the time.'

'Yes, but you're not my doctor. Or my tailor.'

'I'm a scientist and I need your measurements.'

'What for?'

'I'm writing an essay on the correlation between inside leg, shoe size, instep and length of toes according to step lengths on various surfaces. It's important.'

Sighing, John complied and let Sherlock take the measurements he wanted – it wasn't as awkward as expected, Sherlock behaving in a cool and professional manner - only to find that afterwards he was expected to walk, run and hop over their sitting room carpet, the lino in the kitchen, the wooden floor of the vestibule and the bathroom tiles (running in there proved to be a bit of a problem). John vehemently refused to repeat the exercise outside on various soil, grass and slab samples, though.

In order to obtain clearer prints Sherlock had dusted the various surfaces with flour. Repeatedly. Mrs Hudson had not been amused. But later John enjoyed a peaceful evening while Sherlock was happily occupied with studying carpet fibres under the microscope and calculating tensile strengths in correlation to pressure and momentum.

*****

Sherlock was always on his mind. At first it had all been 'No!' and 'Why?' howling inside him. Later came the anger: 'Bloody bastard!', 'How could he?'. Still later the regret: 'I shouldn't have left him alone', 'If only I hadn't called him a machine'. For months after the event he wasn't able to look at himself in a mirror without seeing the man who had killed his best friend through neglect. Finally he was too numb to feel anything, all emotions burned out of him. 

That was when he started seeing Ella again. Therapy helped. Talking about Sherlock helped. Talking to Sherlock, standing at his grave site, even more. Only then John had truly been able to express what his friend had meant to him.

'I was so alone and I owe you so much.'

Too little, too late, and the one for whom it was meant couldn't hear it anymore and had never had much use for such sentimentalities anyway. Still, saying it out loud helped John come to terms with the fact that the most important person in his life had indeed been Sherlock – all questions of whatever that meant put aside.

He hadn't been back to Baker Street ever, since he'd helped Anderson and his colleagues pack up Sherlock's belongings to be examined at New Scotland Yard's labs. Too painful seeing all the things Sherlock had owned, used, touched lying around lifeless and without purpose. 

He didn't know what had become of Sherlock's ridiculously expensive clothes, his chemistry equipment, his microscope and his cherished violin. Some of it might have found its way back to Baker Street after the investigation, as he remembered Mrs Hudson telling him that she wanted to give away the lab equipment to a school or something. He had left her to deal with it. Her and Mycroft.

He felt bad about never getting in touch with her again. But cutting all ties and moving on had been his only way out. At first he stayed at a small hotel, as far away from Marylebone as he could get and still have easy access to the city. For a while he had to go to New Scotland Yard almost every day, answering endless questions about his association with Sherlock.

'Look,' he said to Donovan, who was leading the interrogation, 'if you think that he was a criminal, I must be one, too. I was with him on almost every case. How do you think he managed to commit all those crimes without me knowing it? Don't you think I'd have noticed if he'd abducted those poor children? Either arrest me or stop being such an idiot!'

She was so damn considerate. Poor dumb John Watson, dazzled by a criminal mastermind into believing he was his friend. But time passed by, days and weeks blurring together, without any result one way or another. They didn't arrest him. He wasn't even prosecuted for breaking the Chief Superintendent's nose. Probably Mycroft's influence, but John didn't care. If he never saw that bastard again, it would be one day too early.

Money wasn't a problem as their income had steadily risen when he and Sherlock had still been working together and they'd always split it half and half. But, obviously, it wouldn't last forever. So he used the bulk of his savings as a down payment for a small GP's practice and the rest for a new flat.

He started working again and the routines of everyday life, getting up in the morning, going to work, seeing patients, staying after hours to do the paper work, going home, going to bed, provided a sort of scaffold to hang on to and move along on. Time passed like it always did, and if he woke up some nights from dreams of dark wings plummeting out of the sky, none of his patients were any the wiser. But life seemed drained of all colour, he found. 

Living with Sherlock had been first and foremost fun. Yes, there'd been times when he'd forgotten that and had complained, if only to himself. Only now that Sherlock was gone he understood how lucky he'd been, how blessed. Sherlock had been endlessly entertaining, even without the cases. Honestly, who needed TV when there was Sherlock to observe? The sulking, the moods, the experiments, the body parts in the fridge. His reaction to Bond films and bad TV. The constant squabbling about buying milk. They'd laughed a lot. At each other. About each other. With each other. Mostly with each other.

'I'm never bored,' he'd said once and meant it to spite Mycroft. Now, in hindsight, he had to acknowledge how true that was. He was bored a lot now, if he was honest.

*****

Mary entered his life like a splash of colour, a ray of sunshine in a perpetual November, bringing back warmth and companionship into his life. She had answered his ad looking for a reception nurse and they had sort of hit it off right from the start.

'Do you want to talk about her?' she asked him one evening. 

He was startled out of his thoughts and only then noticed that she must have been standing in the door, ready to say good night, for some time.

'Talk about whom?' he asked.

'Well, I thought... You often look so sad, staring into space, just like now. I thought you must have lost someone. Was she your wife?'

He huffed a short laugh. 'No, no wife. I've never been married. I... actually, he was my best friend. He... he committed suicide a while ago.'

'Oh. That's dreadful,' she said, stepping in and taking the chair opposite him.

'Yes. Yes, it was. I still can't quite believe he's... gone.'

'Was he ill?' she asked.

'No. He must have felt very depressed, but I never thought... I said some pretty hurtful things to him... right before.'

'I'm so sorry,' she said, taking his hand.

And before they both knew it, the night was over, the sun was rising and he found that he'd pretty much recounted his whole blog to her.

'I'm so sorry, I never made the connection,' she said over breakfast at the café around the corner. 'I mean, I remember now, it was all over the papers at the time. John Watson, the blogger. Friends of mine even sent me a link! But somehow I never got around to it.'

'That's fine,' he said, eating with appetite.

'He must have been very special.'

He grinned, dabbing his mouth. 'That he was. He was just totally and unashamedly himself. Sherlock Holmes, the great detective. Going to Buckingham Palace in a bed sheet! Flat out refused to get dressed.' He laughed.

Mary turned out to be his salvation, his reason to go on. She was warm and caring and understanding. Everything Sherlock was not. Some time ago she'd moved in with him and lately he'd started to think about proposing to her. Would she accept him? Married life. Perhaps there would be children somewhere in the future. Everything like it should be. Like he'd always wanted it to be.

No more running through dark alleys. No more rumours. No more Sherlock. Never again.

*****

'Doctor Watson? Doctor Watson?'

The young constable stood before him. The room had filled with people, chattering excitedly.

'Time to take your place on the dais, sir. Follow me, please!'

John shook his head. No time for memories now. Time to lay a ghost to rest, to restore Sherlock's reputation. That at least he could still do for him.

He followed the young man through the crowd and climbed the stairs to the podium. At the table sat the Deputy Commissioner, the Chief Superintendent at his right side, Lestrade, newly promoted to Detective Chief Inspector, to his left, and next to him Detective Inspector Sally Donovan. Mycroft Holmes was inconspicuously absent. John nodded at them all, smiled at Greg, and took his seat next to the DCS.

'How's the nose?' he asked softly. The man managed to suppress a glare and gave him a tight smile.

Donovan tapped the microphone and cleared her throat. The assembly fell silent.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' she said. 'We asked you here today to right a wrong that happened two years ago and has sadly had fatal consequences. The Deputy Commissioner of Police will now read a short statement. After that you will have the opportunity to ask questions.'

The DC rose and fumbled with his glasses. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he began, giving them a short summary of the events that had led to Sherlock's arrest. He then stated that the police force had investigated 'the affair' after Sherlock's suicide. They'd re-opened old cases, researched every angle, but had found nothing to implicate him. Furthermore they'd looked into James Moriarty aka Richard Brook and had come to the conclusion that they were indeed one and the same and the real force behind the sensational criminal cases leading up to the arrest of the wrong suspect. He thanked the Home Office for their cooperation – John smirked – and mentioned the assistance of the French Sûreté as well as Interpol.

'Her Majesty's High Court of Justice has therefore ruled last week that the late Sherlock Holmes has been found innocent of all charges and ordered his good name to be restored. Press shall inform the public accordingly. The Metropolitan Police Service herewith wishes to apologise for any harm done – though unintentional and in performance of our duty – and to express our deepest condolences to the bereaved.' He bowed lightly in John's direction.

'Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,' a resonant baritone resounded in the room as a tall dark figure appeared to the very left in John's field of view.

The press went wild.

Despite the flurry of camera flashes all light suddenly left the room as if taken out by the ebbing tide and darkness was closing in on John. When it came rushing back, all that he saw was red. He staggered to his feet.

Sherlock was standing not ten feet away. Dark suit and shirt, coat with upturned collar, looking the same as the last time John had seen him. Alive. Breathing. Not dead with smashed bones, a bloodied face and unseeing eyes staring into an empty sky.

He took small steps towards the apparition, his face locked into the grimace of a smile. Sherlock smiled at him, eyes sparkling, and opened his mouth to speak, but John didn't hear anything but the blood pulsing in his temples.

'You bastard!' he shouted and punched him solidly in the face. He didn't feel the impact and followed with a punch to the abdomen. Sherlock staggered backwards, his face suddenly drained of colour, but John grabbed at the lapels of his coat. They went down together, John straddling him. He didn't remember anything after that until Lestrade was on him, tackling him from behind and dragging him backwards, John still swinging.

All at once John's sense of hearing returned and he heard people screaming and shouting as a cascade of flash lights engulfed the scene on the dais. Lestrade and the Chief Superintendent held onto him as he struggled to reach Sherlock who lay crumpled on the floor. Sally Donovan was with him, trying to help him up and propping his shoulders against her knees when he went down again. Someone yelled for an ambulance.

The Deputy Commissioner stood still at the table, white as chalk, looking down at the broken glasses in his hand and mumbling, 'Oh dear, oh dear...'

Policemen came running up the steps to the dais as others tried to push the crowd of protesting reporters out of the room. Lestrade kept a tight grip to John's upper arm and dragged him down the steps.

'Come, John, come on now...' They left the melee.

*****

Mary was visiting friends for the weekend and the flat was dark as he sat on the sofa, downing a glass of whisky. The second? No, the third. 'Make that a double,' he said as he refilled it. Sherlock bloody Holmes. Large as life, not dead and gone. God, he was deliriously happy. He had not killed his best friend by abandoning him when he needed him most. No, he was bloody mad. What right did Sherlock have to be alive after all he had put him through? Those feelings didn't mix well. He would kill the bastard himself, even if it was the last thing he did. Gosh, but how very like Sherlock to pull such a stunt. Coming back from the dead. John wanted to kiss him. Ungh, perhaps not. Hug him, though. Kill him. Something.

'Two years!' he said to the empty room. Two years of grief and mourning and asking himself if he could have done anything different. If the outcome would have been – The doorbell rang.

'John,' Mycroft Holmes said, showing the most insincere of his fake smiles.

John closed the door. The bell rang again. Still Mycroft.

'Go away,' John said.

'I will. As soon as I've said what I came here for. Let me in?'

John went back into the living room, keeping his back to the unwelcome visitor standing in the door frame.

'It was my idea,' Mycroft said. 'We planned it together, but it was my idea initially. Baskerville. Remember?'

John slowly turned around. 'So you knew. The whole time you knew.' He stared at the elder Holmes.

'Afraid so.'

'Why?' said John, clenching his fists.

Mycroft sighed. 'Moriarty had to be stopped. The computer key code he bragged to possess had to be taken. We made plans, elaborate plans, for all eventualities. I prepped Moriarty with information about Sherlock that enabled him to destroy his reputation. Then we dangled Sherlock in front of him like bait. Did you never wonder why he agreed to all those interviews? We were sure he would approach Sherlock, one way or another. One final encounter to gloat and boast and show off how very clever he had been in engineering Sherlock's downfall. What we – or rather I – didn't foresee was that that cretin would kill himself and force Sherlock to follow him. As it turned out, Sherlock had planned for that, too.'

'He's dead then? Moriarty? I don't understand. How did he force Sherlock? And why didn't you tell me?'

'Any show of excessive grief on my part would have seemed absurd, don't you think? You on the other hand? His blogger – or rather biographer? If you believed Sherlock dead and acted accordingly, blogged about it in fact, nobody would believe otherwise. In a way your grief granted his survival. I am sorry, John.'

'That's nice.' John said. 'Real nice of you two to let me watch him fall to his 'death'.'

'Don't be silly, you weren't supposed to be there. Why do you think I had you called away to assist Mrs Hudson?'

'That was you!'

'Of course it was.'

John shook his head. 'I still don't understand. Why didn't you tell me later? And where has he been all this time?'

'Would you have liked me to tell you a year ago that Sherlock was alive - only to inform you a few weeks or months later that our ruse had become sad reality? He was dismantling Moriarty's network. That drugs bust in Marseille? Insider material whose origins could never be traced? That was him. The Trepoff murders in Odessa? Ukrainian mob. Sherlock played one side against the other. The rest took care of itself. In New York he -'

'And you sent him to do that by himself? I could have helped!' He should've helped. He would have.

'I just explained to you why you couldn't. My brother is an asset, John. An asset I cannot always afford to spare. But we were always in touch. He needed false papers, accommodations, money. Though three weeks ago we lost contact while he was in Serbia. I sent several tried and trusted agents after him and we tracked him down. He'd been caught invading a nuclear power plant, and was subsequently imprisoned and interrogated. Rather... harshly, I'm afraid. We were able to retrieve him.'

'Jesus. Is he all right?' Of course Sherlock had been hurt. Every time he'd worked for Mycroft he'd been hurt.

'You know him. Sherlock has a very stable constitution and surprising powers of recovery.'

'Jesus Christ,' John said again. 'I didn't know. I wouldn't have slogged an injured man!'

'Of course not,' Mycroft said. 'I told him this stunt wouldn't go over well. He wouldn't listen. If your time allows, you might want to listen to this.' He placed a black rectangular object on the coffee table.

'That's Sherlock's phone!'

'Indeed it is. Good evening, Doctor Watson.'

*****

The first thing he heard, very faintly, was the tune of 'Staying Alive' and then Moriarty's voice, 'Ah. Here we are at last – you and me, Sherlock, and our problem – the final problem.'

John shuddered and sat down, listening intently.

A few minutes in Moriarty screamed, 'There is no key, DOOFUS!'

John flinched, his sense memory flooding him with unwelcome sensations: a pool at night, it was hot and humid, and the straps of that vest were very uncomfortable.

Moriarty said, 'Now, shall we finish the game? One final act. Glad you chose a tall building – nice way to do it.'

'Do it? Do – do what?' Sherlock asked, sounding confused. 'Yes, of course. My suicide.' Defeated.

''Genius detective proved to be a fraud.' I read it in the paper, so it must be true. I love newspapers. Fairy tales. And pretty Grimm ones too.' Moriarty again.

Then Sherlock, 'I can still prove that you created an entirely false identity.'

'Oh, just kill yourself. It's a lot less effort. - Go on. For me.'

The perversity of that voice made John's blood run cold.

Then suddenly a high-pitched squeal, 'Pleeeeease?' and a short scuffle and Sherlock's voice again, 'You're insane.' Breathless.

Whatever had happened, things seemed to have turned physical at that point and John was beginning to feel sick.

'You're just getting that now?' Moriarty asked. 'Okay, let me give you a little extra incentive. Your friends will die if you don't.'

'John,' Sherlock said, sounding desperate.

John clutched the sofa's armrest so hard that his hand cramped. The pool. It was the pool all over again.

'Not just John. Everyone,' the devil whispered.

'Mrs Hudson.'

'Everyone.' The whisper again.

'Lestrade.'

'Three bullets; three gunmen; three victims. There's no stopping them now. Unless my people see you jump.'

Sherlock, John thought, don't. Just... don't.

Heavy breathing. Sherlock?

Then Moriarty again, 'You can have me arrested; you can torture me; you can do anything you like with me; but nothing's gonna prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die... unless…'

'...unless I kill myself and complete your story.'

'You've gotta admit that sexier.' Moriarty mocked.

'And I die in disgrace.' Sherlock. Lost and alone.

John's right hand covered his mouth, stifling the enraged howl forming in his throat, while the fingers of his left shredded the armrest's fabric.

'Of course. That's the point of this. Off you pop. Go on.'

John ran. He reached the bathroom just in time.

When he returned to the living room, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the recording was still playing and he heard Sherlock's voice, soft and sad, 'This phone call – it's, er... it's my note. For people do, don't they – leave a note?'

He turned the recording off and placed the phone very gently back on the table. He felt dirty. As if he had witnessed an act of rape.

*****

So, Sherlock had thrown himself off a tall building to save his friends, John thought, trying to soberly sort through the mess after he'd listened to the whole recording for a second time. The key code had turned out to be a fake and the whole set-up had had one purpose only, to destroy Sherlock once and for all.

His phone rang and Mary's breathless voice said, 'Oh God, John, I just saw it in the news! Are you all right? How is it even possible? I'm coming home.'

'No!' he said and then more gently, 'No. Please don't cut short your visit. I'm... I'm fine. I just need to sort this through. Alone. I need a little time...'

'I understand,' she said. 'But, please, don't do anything rash.'

He coughed out a laugh. 'I think I already did. He was just standing there, laughing, obviously happy to be back and I... Gosh, I was so mad. I literally saw red.'

'Of course you did. I completely understand. What was he thinking to put you through all this?'

'I – I just can't talk about it now, Mary. We'll talk when you're back, okay? It's... it's complicated.'

She sighed. 'Of course it is. We'll talk when you're ready. I'll be there, I promise.' They rang off.

He'd always wondered what the hell could have happened that Sherlock did something so out of character as committing suicide. The papers claimed he was a fraud? That was just stupid. Scotland Yard believed him guilty? Let them find out the truth. Destroyed reputations could be rebuilt. Of course Sherlock would have been disappointed that the very people he'd helped so often and without recompense disowned him like that. John had been mad himself. But how did killing oneself help that? You lived to fight another day.

And then Sherlock had told him – him of all people! - that he was a fake and that John ought to make that fact known to his other friends as well. It had seemed so wrong at the time and it had niggled at John ever since. Because if he was sure about one thing when it came to Sherlock Holmes, it was the fact that he was genuine.

On the other hand, what could Sherlock have said? 'John, I'm doing this for you'? That was not how you did this. It happened in war, someone giving his life for his friends. 'Go ahead, I'll cover for you and follow later', that's what you said. One didn't say melodramatic crap like, 'I'll sacrifice myself for you'. Sherlock had told them to go on. And he had given them an out: 'Believe that I'm a fake.'

And then he'd found a way to survive. Against all odds. One more miracle. Exactly what John had asked of him. He went undercover, into deadly peril, no doubt, aware that his fake death could become reality any time. Gave up his life for his friends, not physically perhaps, but in every other sense of the word. He dismantled Moriarty's network, was caught and interrogated. 'Harshly' as his brother so delicately put it. Imprisoned and all alone, not knowing if help would arrive in time.

Only to return and be punched in the gut for his efforts by a friend too angry to listen to him.

What kind of sociopath did that? Laying down your life for others was the ultimate sacrifice. This wasn't the action of an unfeeling, uncaring individual. Had all his assumptions about Sherlock been false? But how could he have been so wrong? When even Jim Moriarty had seen that Sherlock had a heart?

John turned the recording on again, punishing himself.

Afterwards he felt like crying, but in the end he just sat there waiting for the night to end.

*****

'John!' Mrs Hudson greeted him. She didn't smile and he blinked at her in confusion. Had she always been that fragile, that small?

'Just one phone call!' she said. 'One phone call would have done. After all we went through.'

'Yes, I know,' he replied. 'I am sorry. I just let it slide, Mrs Hudson. And it just got harder and harder to pick up the phone somehow. D'you know what I mean?'

'I understand how difficult it was for you after... after…'

'Yes,' he said. 'But now -'

'Now!' she said, suddenly beaming and looking years younger. 'Can you believe it? I still can't. I have to go and look in on him every half hour, because I still don't trust my eyes. Oh -' And all at once she was in his arms, and they were both clinging to each other and shaking with tears and suppressed laughter. 'But how? Why? I still don't understand. And I don't have to, I'm just so glad to have him back! Upstairs again. Alive!'

'Didn't he tell you anything?'

'Just that he was off doing something for his brother. Terribly secret and whatnot. Oh, John! But he's looking terrible. So thin and so worn. We have to feed him and look after him, make sure he gets a proper night's rest and all -'

'Mrs Hudson...'

'Yes, I understand. You go upstairs. Go talk to him!'

*****

Sherlock stood facing the window. Blue dressing gown. Violin in his left, bow in his right hand, arms hanging. Weak sunlight limning his silhouette, the way John had seen him a hundred times.

John stopped in the doorway and just watched.

Sherlock slowly turned around and placed violin and bow carefully on his armchair. 'John.' He sported a spectacular black eye and his lower lip was split and a bit puffy.

John stared at him. He had done that. Sherlock had offered no resistance, hadn't tried to defend himself at all when John had assaulted him the previous day. And John knew what his friend was capable of. They were quite evenly matched, he knew from experience. There had been a few tussles in the past, after Irene, when Sherlock had relapsed and John was forced to restrain him, though they'd never gone all out, careful not to seriously hurt each other.

'Sorry I ruined your triumphant return,' John said.

Sherlock's face was a mask, but his eyes showed his misery. 'It was a stupid idea.'

'And I'm sorry I hit you,' John continued. 'You didn't deserve -'

'Don't!' Sherlock said. 'Don't you apologise to me. I deserve - It's I who –

'Look, I know I owe you a thousand apologies. You have no idea how often I almost contacted you...' 

How many times had Sherlock rehearsed that sentence in his head, John wondered. 'But you couldn't.'

'No.' Rough-soft voice, barely audible.

John stepped forward and Sherlock flinched.

'Oh God,' John said and enveloped him in a crushing hug. 

Sherlock's arms came up slowly and wrapped around his shoulders. The body in his arms felt thin and fragile.

'Forgive me. Forgive me for everything I've done to you...' Sherlock said, his forehead resting on John's shoulder.

John wrapped a hand around his friend's bowed neck, feeling the soft tickle of curls on his skin. From this close he could see a few silver threads in that unruly mop of dark hair.

'I'm still mad as hell, but not at you,' he whispered. 'You are amazing! How on earth did you pull that one off?'

Sherlock's head whipped up. 'I am?'

Praise still worked its magic. 'Of course you are! You're Sherlock Holmes! Sit and tell me all about it.' He turned him around and gave him a gentle shove in the direction of his armchair. 

Sherlock folded himself into it, careful not to crush the instrument behind him. John took his old seat. Home. This was home.

'Mycroft and I planned it together -' Sherlock started hesitantly.

'Yeah, I know that much.'

'Mycroft?'

'Mycroft.'

Sherlock nodded. 'When we left Miss Riley's flat I finally understood where it was all headed. That it had nothing to do with that idiotic secret code. But I had no idea how he intended to do it. I, of course, wanted to avoid dying if at all possible. So, I left you and went straight to Bart's to secure Molly's help.'

'Molly Hooper!'

'Molly Hooper. I needed someone to sign off my autopsy, you understand? Preferably without actually performing one. From there I set a few things in motion. So, when Mycroft had you called away to Mrs Hudson, I dosed myself with a blood pressure depressant – overdosed a bit actually, no fun - then went up to the roof. Jim and I had a little chat. He blew his brains out and I had to... do what I did. Imagine my alarm when you turned up again! The time frame was shortened dramatically. I had to position you, so you wouldn't be able to see my six homeless men holding the rescue net into which I jumped. Someone jostled you to give me time. The rest was window dressing, a squash ball under the armpit and holding my breath.'

'A rescue net! Do you have any idea how dangerous those things are?'

'Yes, well, I'd have preferred an air bag, obviously - I dislocated my shoulder, that hurt - but there wouldn't have been enough time to dispose of it, even if you hadn't been there, so a net it was.'

'You overdosed and you dislocated your shoulder.'

'Molly popped it in again.'

John shook his head. 'But all the people...?'

'A few were real. The rest were Mycroft's. Official Secrets Act. No problem.'

'And your homeless guys?'

'Mycroft took care of them.'

John raised an eyebrow.

'Oh, nothing like that. They're holidaying on tax payers' expenses somewhere out of the way.' He smiled, obviously pleased with himself.

'And then?'

'Well, you saw me rushed into Bart's where I landed on Molly's autopsy table. By that time I was rather out of it. Molly declared me dead, Mycroft officially identified my body and one of his men got me out of the city in a hearse. And then it was off to France.'

He was silent for a moment. 'I tried to tell you, you know,' he said softly. 'I said it was just a magic trick. You didn't understand.'

'Of course I didn't,' John said, anger seething up again. 'I was bloody horrified! Do you have any idea what it was like, seeing you like that?'

'Like seeing you with a bomb strapped to you?' Sherlock suggested.

They stared at each other.

'Yeah, well, there was that,' John muttered. 'Well, that's for the how. Now about the why. Why, Sherlock? Why the hell did you -'

'I didn't think you'd be so -' Sherlock started.

'So what?' John barked.

Sherlock jumped. 'So angry,' he said.

John raised both hands in a placating gesture. 'Of course I was angry. You were dead. I... I thought I'd killed you. I mourned you. For two years, Sherlock... you let me grieve for two years. And not only me. How could you do that?'

'I never thought – No! Why would you think that? - Look, I am sorry. I said I'm sorry. I thought you would be glad I'm back. It must've been so boring...'

John stared at him. 'You know what? For a genius you can be remarkably thick.'

'I never thought you would leave Baker Street,' Sherlock said, sounding bewildered. 'When will you move in again? We can get your things right now and -'

'I can't,' John said, trying to smile. Damn. This really wasn't something he'd wanted to discuss with Sherlock right now. By avoiding John's question, he had steered their conversation straight into even more dangerous waters. 'I – I've moved on. I had to. You were dead, don't you understand and there I was, left with the rest of my life. I've met someone and we're living together,' John blurted out, trying to get it over with as fast as possible. These things had to be said. No time like the present.

'A girlfriend,' Sherlock said.

'She's more than that. She's great. I... I'm thinking about asking her to marry me. You must meet Mary -' John faltered. This was probably not such a good idea.

Sherlock grimaced.

Definitely a bad idea.

And he wanted to say: 'Nothing really has to change that much. We'll still be able to see each other. I could have it all. A wife, a job, all the excitement, you.' But all that came out when he opened his mouth was an order: 'And you will like her!'

Sherlock said nothing.

'That doesn't mean that I can't help you with cases again. If you want me to.'

'Yes,' Sherlock said slowly. 'Of course.'

He jumped up and paced to the kitchen, his dressing gown billowing behind him. 'Tea?' he asked. 'Of course I'll meet your Mary, if I have time before I leave.'

'Leave?' John exclaimed, turning around. 'You've only just come back!'

Doing his best to stay calm and to ignore the sudden wild hammering inside his chest he got up and followed Sherlock into the kitchen.

'You've been hurt,' John said as reasonably as he could. 'And I've probably made it worse... yesterday. You need time to recover.'

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively while turning the kettle on with the other. 'It's nothing.'

He turned around and smiled brilliantly. 'It's probably for the best to be out of reach until the headlines have died down a bit. I can barely avoid all the calls asking for interviews. Had to unplug the phone. Inbox's full to bursting. I can't work with all the attention on me at the moment.'

'But where are you going?' John asked. 'And for how long?' He didn't say it, but he didn't bloody like this.

'I'll probably go to France for a while,' Sherlock said. 'My mother's house. Well, Mycroft's now.'

'You deserve a vacation,' John agreed slowly. Well, the weather in France around this time of the year was probably better and after two years of undercover work and being on the run and tortured and whatnot it was understandable that Sherlock wanted some time to relax and re-adjust, but inside him everything was screaming that this was a terrible idea and he couldn't possibly let Sherlock leave again so quickly. He'd only just got him back. And they hadn't even scratched the surface of all the things that needed to be said.

They settled down with their tea. Mrs Hudson came up and brought them sandwiches and biscuits, staying a while and chatting. Sherlock told tall stories about his adventures abroad. Cloak and dagger stuff. One big exhilarating adventure after another. A Sherlock Holmes holiday. All the while being just a bit too bright, too lively.

When Mrs Hudson left them again, John got up. He grabbed Sherlock's chin and turned his face into the fire light. Fever bright eyes, huge pupils. 'What have you taken?'

Sherlock jerked his chin out of John's grasp. 'Just pain killers. No need to worry, Doctor.'

'What happened in Serbia?' John asked, cold dread unfurling inside him. He knew what happened in such places. Not from personal experience, but he read the papers. And he'd known a few guys in the army schooled in prisoner interrogation. Nothing he wanted to do for a living. The thought of Sherlock subjected to... that made him sick to his stomach.

Sherlock hesitated. 'It got a bit rough. A few beatings. Nothing I couldn't handle. Mostly sleep deprivation and starvation. I can go days without eating and sleeping, you know. Really, totally unimaginative lot, those Serbians.'

John laughed despite himself. Trust Sherlock to complain about unimaginative interrogation techniques.

John knew that Sherlock could go without food for days. He always did on cases, claiming that digestion slowed him down. He'd made asceticism into an art form. When he did eat, he was normally not fussy and would be content with fish and chips or beans on toast or whatever could be provided quickly.

On the other hand, when he really indulged himself - normally in celebration of a successfully closed interesting case - he took John to the most fantastic restaurants John had ever encountered. Places he'd never heard of and which were only known to a select few. Real Szechuan, gloriously spicy Indian, the most excellent Italian. Once they had dined - unbeknownst to John at first – on fugu, the deadly puffer fish. Delicious.

Still, it couldn't have been as harmless as he pretended. John had seen his hands. Sherlock had beautiful hands. Strong, but delicate, with long, slender fingers, always immaculately manicured. Now his nails were worn down to the quick, the cuticles torn and rough. His knuckles showed abrasions and his wrists were bandaged. Sherlock, sensing John's gaze, at once hid them in the folds of his dressing gown.

John remembered how he'd first found out about the secret of Sherlock's grooming. About once a month or so Sherlock would vanish for a full day without any explanation. At first John hardly noticed, but when he did and asked what Sherlock was up to he just mumbled something about 'maintenance' and was gone before John could ask any further questions. Then, one day, when he took a taxi, the cabby asked, 'La Maison Balmaine?'

'What?' John said.

'I said, La Maison Balmaine. As in do you want to go there? Lookin' a bit rough, mate.'

John hadn't shaved that day. 'I've no idea what you're talking about,' he said.

The cabby sighed. 'Guess not. Took Mr 'olmes earlier today. Thought you were to join 'im. Whatever. Where'd you want to go?'

Maintenance day! John thought. 'You know what,' he said. 'You're right. Just take me there.'

The cabby shook his head. Why couldn't passengers just make up their minds?

They arrived at a posh location in St. James Street. 'La Maison Balmaine, Day Spa & Beauty Parlour' stated the elegant hunter green awning above the door. John gaped at it uncomprehendingly. Then realisation dawned. The vain git, he thought and grinned. For someone who maintained his body was only transport, Sherlock liked to present said transport in immaculate condition.

He could just imagine Sherlock succumbing to massages and pampering, probably purring like a cat, indulging himself like a lascivious odalisque in a Turkish bath. His very physical reaction to these mental images caught him by surprise.

'On the other hand,' he said to the cabby, 'why don't you just drive me to New Scotland Yard?'

The man gave him the side-eye, but did as he was told.

John never mentioned it to Sherlock, but did so to his girlfriend at the time and was treated to a longish discourse about how empowering it was for a man to not overemphasise his masculinity, but instead to embrace the female side of his personality. John didn't really think that Sherlock needed any more empowering, but didn't say so (he hadn't scored yet).

Amanda (was it?) was really excited to meet the hero of his blog. She was a blogger herself (something or other about feminism in the twenty second century), that was how they had met. But when he brought her home to Baker Street, things went downhill from the start when Sherlock told her that not shaving her legs did nothing to further the cause of feminism and that if she was so averse to the male gaze, why hadn't she avoided John's gaze in the first place?

The whole thing degenerated into what could only be called a bitch fest of epic proportions and ended with Amanda slamming the door on her way out and with John being on the brink of punching Sherlock in the face before he ran after her.

The next day John found an irate post - or rather a rant - on her blog about the terrible, horrible white male privilege appropriating women's own means and expressions of their femininity to further patriarchal power etcetera, etcetera. John hadn't bothered to make sense of even half of it. Amanda was history.

There probably hadn't been much opportunity for pampering in the two years Sherlock was undercover, John thought, gazing at Sherlock's hands tucked away in his dressing gown. And suddenly the idea of Sherlock all alone without even the simplest comforts of home – his armchair, his dressing gowns, his beloved violin – made him quite unbearably sad.

And he wanted to tell Sherlock as much. In fact he wanted to tell him a great many things. He just wasn't sure what and where to start. How did you say, 'I know you did what you did for me, for us, for your friends, and it was brave and heroic and I love and admire you for it' to someone who claimed to be a sociopath? How did you say, 'I mourned you and missed you and it was hell on earth, really, but what you did must have been as hard at least' to someone who would just make a joke about unimaginative interrogation methods in Serbia?

For some time they just sat there, saying nothing. Sherlock took up his violin, softly plucking a few strings.

In the past they had spent many a day in comfortable silence, neither of them feeling the need for meaningless chatter. John might have offered a 'Good morning!' on coming down from his room and finding Sherlock downstairs in his dressing gown. To which Sherlock might have responded with 'hrm...', hardly looking up from whatever he kept himself occupied with. Sometimes that was the only communication they shared for the day. It never mattered.

It felt different now with all these unspoken things between them. Dusk settled in and John looked at his watch. Blimey, it was late. And Mary would be waiting.

'I have to go,' he said reluctantly, getting up slowly and feeling like a coward. 'You look after yourself, will you? Eat, sleep, rest!'

Sherlock didn't answer.

Not sure where to look, John shifted uneasily from foot to foot. 'All right,' he said, aiming for casual and missing by a mile, 'I'll call you tomorrow and we'll set a date. I really want you to meet Mary.'

Sherlock still said nothing.

John went slowly towards the door and put on his coat. A last look at Sherlock, still lost in thought in his chair before the fire, and John was heading down the stairs. He thought he heard Sherlock's voice calling out to him, but couldn't be quite sure.

As he walked towards the Jubilee line on his way home to the suburbs, to Mary, he noticed the phone in his pocket. It felt far heavier than it should. Sherlock had of course dodged any explanation of the 'why' and John had been too gut-less to insist. He just couldn't go there now. Not now when it was all still so raw. Next time, he promised himself. Next time they'd really talk. About everything. And he'd tell Sherlock... what? What exactly would he tell him, for Christ's sake?

Something tickled his cheek. He swiped at it with his thumb and it came away wet. He put it down to joy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's musings about bees and quantum mechanics taken from here: http://discovermagazine.com/1997/nov/quantumhoneybees1263

'But, you're not even gay!' Mary yelled, her eyes wide, and throwing her hands up in a frustrated gesture as she stood before him.

This wasn't going all too well. Not that John had expected it to be a pleasant conversation. However, he wasn't quite prepared for this level of anguish.

'Yes. Right. I know,' John agreed. 'I've said so for years. But this has nothing to do with sex.'

'You just told me that you're going to leave me for Sherlock Holmes!'

'Yes, and I am very sorry, Mary, but there is no other way.'

*****

He had tried to call Sherlock several times after his visit, but the damn bastard didn't answer. Probably his phone was still in the fridge or whatever unlikely place he'd put it. The memory made John smile.

*****

'I don't understand. I don't understand any of this! Two weeks ago we were good. You were even thinking about marriage – and don't tell me you weren't, because I found the ring. I wasn't snooping, you understand, it was when I put away the washing and it was in your underwear drawer. Seriously? And now he's back and you're totally different and you want to leave me?'

'It's... complicated,' John said.

'Then explain it to me!'

*****

When he revisited Baker Street ten days later, he discovered that the doorbell had been turned off. John shook his head and rapped the knocker. No answer. He knocked again. Finally he took out his key and stared at it in wonder. 'What does that tell you?' he heard Ella's voice inside his head.

*****

'When he was... gone,' John began carefully, 'when I thought he was dead, some part of myself died with him, you know.'

Mary, now calmer, sat down again on the sofa and listened intently.

'I was half dead again, rather like I was when I came back from Afghanistan. But I could function a little better than before. And so I tried. I tried having a normal life, but it was dull. Everyone tells you that that's what you should want. Everyone expects you to want that. Normal people don't like to live on the edge of a knife.'

*****

Once he'd let himself in, he immediately knew from the watchful, waiting silence within that the house was empty. He was too late. Mrs Hudson didn't answer her door and when he hesitantly went upstairs their living room was dark and the drapes were drawn, dust motes dancing in a ray of light which had stolen its way through a gap in the curtains. It was... orderly. No maps, no books, no papers. He bent down and touched the ashes in the grate. Cold. The violin was gone, too.

*****

'Of course not,' said Mary. 'Why would anybody want that?'

John smiled at her. 'See?' he said gently. 'There are people in the world, Mary, for whom the knife's edge is their normal. And apparently I'm one of them. Everything else is just... existing. It's half a life at best. And I was prepared to try that. To just exist. Then you turned up and everything looked just a bit brighter. I could share my life with you and be content. Because I do love you -'

'Don't you dare say that... now!' she said.

*****

No chemistry equipment in the kitchen. Obviously, Sherlock hadn't even bothered unpacking what was left of it. The fridge was empty except for a very cold mobile phone, the call history showing lots and lots of unanswered calls, his own among them.

*****

'But it's true,' John said. 'I love you. Just not... Sometimes that isn't enough.'

'It's enough for me,' Mary said, leaning towards him. 'Why can't we keep what we have and you can still live your life on the knife's edge, if that's what you want? You can sell your practice and go on solving cases with Sherlock. I wouldn't mind.'

*****

Sherlock's bedroom was as tidy as always. Suits and shirts hanging in neat rows in his wardrobe, looking untouched and forlorn. A faint trace of Sherlock's cologne all that was left of his presence. What the hell was he wearing then? And what was he doing wearing whatever it was?

*****

'And how would that work?' John asked. 'How could we all live with such divided loyalties? Me constantly having to choose between you and him? You'd resent me, if we tried.'

'How is this any different from the jobs policemen do? Or firemen? Soldiers? You were a soldier once. Was no one in the military ever married?' Mary demanded.

'Of course they were. It's still not the same. Their professional loyalty is to an idea or an institution, not a person. My loyalty is to him and... it'll always come first. Could you really live with that?'

*****

John returned to the living room and sat down in his chair. This couldn't go on. If he was honest with himself he'd known it from the day Sherlock had come home. He just hadn't admitted it to himself. Cowardice. That's what it was. And he knew it and it made him extremely displeased with himself. He snapped at Mary, who didn't deserve this, was rude to his patients, who deserved it even less, and basically was nothing but a pain in the arse to everyone having the misfortune to be around him.

*****

'It would be better than nothing,' Mary said, but without much enthusiasm.

'No, it wouldn't,' John said. 'Not after the way it's been.'

'But why? I don't understand. I really don't. After everything he's put you through!'

*****

He had to sort this out and fast. All right then, diagnose it as if it were an illness. Perhaps it was. So, symptoms: severe discontent showing in increasingly aggressive behaviour. Aversion against home and work place as seen in his repeatedly fleeing the same to meet Lestrade or Stamford or right now to visit Baker Street. Intense longing displaying itself in dreams about Sherlock and trying to get in touch again. And right now severe frustration at being too late and unable to reconnect. Shit!

*****

'That wasn't his fault. In fact it was the most selfless thing anyone's ever done for me.'

'Then tell me what it was about!' Mary demanded. 'You said we'd talk. We never did. Why don't you tell me about it?'

John hesitated, then said, 'I can't. Because it doesn't concern you. Because it's between me and him. Because he's... this experience, I mean… it's mine.'

*****

Now, what about a cure? What do you really want, John Watson? he asked himself. Where do you want to be and with whom? The answer presented itself at once. Here. He wanted to be here. With Sherlock. He wanted his old life back. Their life. The way it was before everything went to hell.

So, how could he go on living with Mary? The answer was simple. He couldn't. It was unfair, he knew that. He loved her, in a way. He was grateful for her presence in his life when there'd been nothing else left. She had picked up the pieces, had glued them together and restored him to something resembling his former self. And if Sherlock truly had been dead that might have been enough. But she had only ever been the second choice. Now his real love had returned and he could be whole again.

*****

'You love him,' Mary said aghast. 'But how can you even consider giving everything up... for him? What can he give you that can make up for all we have?'

'You're right. And I need to be there. With him. He needs me. He sees me for what I really am. And he values it.'

'And I don't?' asked Mary. 'Then show me!'

*****

Hold that thought. His real love? Dear God. But it was true. He did love that brilliant and barking mad man. Had done so from day one. And if that meant he was doomed to spend his life having only meaningless sex with short-term girlfriends, so be it. No wife and children for him, because which woman would put up with being forever number two in her husband's affection? And how could he bring children into the world he and Sherlock occupied? 'Confirmed bachelor John Watson' he remembered a quote from a newspaper article. That's what he would be. What he was.

Though there might be other possibilities opening up before him. Possibilities he would have to think about very carefully.

*****

'You wouldn't like me, if I did,' John said. 'I'm not... the way you think I am, Mary. You only know the doctor. You've never met the soldier. But he's part of me, too.'

'So, all we had was just... what?' Mary asked. 'An illusion? And our plans for the future count for nothing?'

'It was a dream, Mary. Just a pleasant dream of what might have been. But I've got my reality back now. And I know it sounds cruel – but it's incompatible with yours.'

She nodded once. 'Then there's nothing more to say, I guess.' She stood and turned to leave the room. After a few seconds he heard the bedroom door close.

'The first night we spent together I shot a man who threatened him,' John said to the spot on the sofa no longer occupied by Mary. 'I did it in cold blood and I'd do it again. I'd kill anyone who threatened to harm him...' He wondered where that had come from, but it made his subconscious stance on the matter pretty clear.

*****

Sherlock had left the country. John had no idea where this house in France was, but he had to get there. They would have a talk. It would be tough, no doubt, but talk they would. It was definitely cards on the table time.

*****

John knew better than to approach any of the silent man-servants guarding the Diogenes Club. He went directly to the Stanger's Room, waiting for Mycroft to appear from the depths of the club. His patience wasn't tested for long.

'So, where is he?' he asked as soon as the elder Holmes had closed the door behind him.

'John,' Mycroft said, quietly stepping across the room which seemed to shrink in dimension as if intimidated by his very presence. He smiled thinly. 'I assume you're referring to my brother's whereabouts?'

John didn't dignify that with an answer.

'And why would I tell you, if he so clearly wants to be left alone?' Mycroft filled a tumbler with amber liquid from one of the cut crystal decanters on the drinks trolley.

'Because we have to talk,' John snarled, standing very erect, stance wide.

'About your upcoming nuptials? Forgive me when I say that Sherlock clearly showed no particular enthusiasm regarding the event. I tried to warn him that you had moved on, but, as always, he wouldn't listen.'

'You warned him. And what would you know about my marriage plans?'

'Oh, clearly I kept a weather eye on you during Sherlock's absence. He always was most eager to learn what was going on with you. I assured him you were fine and getting on with your life. Which may have been a mistake, as he seemed to be under the impression he could just jump out of the cake, so to speak, and simply take up where he left off two years ago. Though, of course, you can never really go home. But it wouldn't have done to distract him.' Mycroft took a small sip.

'So, you left him to think he could come back and find everything unchanged and then let him find out the hard way it wasn't. Nicely done, Mycroft. After everything he went through.' John's fists were clenched so tight they started to cramp.

Mycroft showed his teeth. 'He couldn't afford to get all sentimental over you. It might have cost his life. I did what I thought best for him. And now I think it best if you leave him alone, so he can get over it and get on with his life. After all you won't be a part of it any longer, at least not the way you used to be. Which may be for the best.'

'Well, I hate to disappoint you,' John said, 'but the marriage's off.'

'It is?' Mycroft said, sounding genuinely surprised.

'I've made my decision,' John said, 'and I won't leave him, like it or not, I don't care.'

Mycroft stared at him. Finally he cleared his throat and said, 'Well, I didn't see this development coming, I admit.' He took another sip. 'My brother, John, cares deeply about the people in his life. A character trait I couldn't rid him of, try as I might. I've always warned him about the dangers of getting... involved, but still, he cares. He tries to adhere to my advice, but he fails spectacularly more often than not. But, of course, you know that.'

John swallowed. 'You two surely had me fooled,' he said.

'I told you once that Sherlock has the mind of a scientist or a philosopher. But he also has the temperament of the true artist – an unfortunate inheritance from our mother's side. Sherlock's got her heart as well as her capacity for suffering. These last two years have been hard on him. Far harder than I expected.'

'You will not put him in such a position again,' John said.

Mycroft looked at him for a long time. Then he smiled that thin-lipped, humourless smile John had once decided must be his real one.

'I won't. I may have erred trying to shape him in my fashion. He's not suited to it.'

'Mycroft Holmes admitting a mistake.'

'Whatever you think, John, I did what I did to protect him. You have no idea what he was like as a boy. Highly intelligent, of course. Precocious. Hypersensitive. So easily hurt. And there were always people to hurt him. Then the drugs. It was a mess. I doubted he would make it to thirty.'

'Christ,' John said.

'He's in France, doing something ridiculous with bees. Our house is near Saint-Renan. I will provide you with transport,' Mycroft offered.

'That would be most welcome.'

They looked at each other as if seeing the other for the first time. Then Mycroft offered his hand.

'I am very... glad, John,' he said. 'Bring him back.'

*****

The old, four-gabled sandstone house baked lazily in the afternoon sun inside an overgrown garden, where the colours of early roses were running riot and vying with the varying blues of blooms John couldn't readily identify. He put his suitcase down before the front door. When he knocked, it was opened by a woman in her fifties, with dark hair going slightly grey and a sun-tanned complexion, wearing a maid's uniform. 'Oui?'

'Mr Holmes?' he asked. 'Sherlock Holmes?'

She answered in French and, seeing him helplessly shrug, gestured to the back of the house and then to a path leading from the front door around the house into the depths of the property.

'Ah. In the garden?'

'Garden. Oui,' she said and smiled, her rather stern and forbidding face suddenly beautiful. 'Avec les abeilles.'

'Right,' John said and started down the path.

The garden was huge and lush with fresh green. Fruit-bearing trees lined the walk and dispensed mottled shadows on the stone flags. Behind the house was a terraced patio furnished with wicker chairs and tables, followed by a great lawn that slightly descended into the farther depths of the greenery. No Sherlock to be seen. John shrugged and marched down the lawn which felt soft and springy under his weary feet.

He could hear the humming even from afar and it grew louder the nearer he got to the little copse of trees at the end of the lawn. And there he found Sherlock, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of a row of beehives, his back to the house. John kept a respectful distance and watched in fascination as bees swarmed around Sherlock, occasionally landing on his hair or shoulders, crawling around in circles and taking off again. He didn't seem to notice while working away on a tablet computer.

'Don't you ever get stung?' John asked.

Sherlock froze. For a few moments he sat totally motionless, then made a gentle shooing motion which rendered him bee-free within seconds and slowly turned around. He looked up at John. 'And why would they sting me?' he said. 'I don't harm them.'

So, that was what a holidaying Sherlock looked like. His hair was tousled and its rich, dark colour shimmered auburn in the sunlight. His cheekbones and the ridge of his nose showed a bit of sunburn. The black eye had faded to blotchy shades of green and yellow still marring his face. He wore a collarless, wide-cut shirt that looked old, as if it had been washed and dried in the sun so often that the material was broken down to feathery softness.

John grinned and shifted a little on his feet. 'Would you mind coming over here? I'm not as trusting of the bees as you are.'

'I'm perfectly comfortable where I am. And what, for God's sake, are you doing here?'

Stroppy then. He could deal with that. 'We have to talk,' John said and sat down on the grass, keeping his distance from the hives.

'We did talk. I apologised. I do so again. Profusely. I don't know what else there is to say.'

'And I said I forgive you. And I do.'

'You didn't. You said you weren't mad at me.'

'Well then, I do forgive you,' John said. 'For everything you did for me. And Mrs Hudson. And Lestrade. They forgive you, too.'

Sherlock's eyes widened.

'You told me everything about how you did it, but we never got around to the why. And just for the record, if you ever again feel the need to protect me or anyone with your life and don't tell me about it, I will beat you senseless. I understand the circumstances you were in. And I understand why you felt you couldn't contact me later to let me know you were alive. But it won't happen again. Because I will never go through this again. Ever. And neither will you.'

Sherlock swallowed. 'How...?'

John took Sherlock's phone out of his pocket and put it on the grass in front of him.

'Oh.'

'Yes. I'll have your back, Sherlock. Always. That's what I'm here for. And I need you to trust me with that.'

They stared at each other across the eight foot gap separating them. Then Sherlock spoke.

'I was so alone. And I missed you so much,' he said.

*****

John lay in his bed, his body weary from travelling and too many sleepless nights, while his mind was positively buzzing with excitement, much like one of Sherlock's beehives. He felt very well-disposed towards the bees. Bees were nice.

'I was so alone. And I missed you so much.'

John's throat had closed up and he was unable to do anything but swallow heavily as they sat there gazing at each other. Then a bee suddenly landed on Sherlock's nose and he went cross-eyed as he stuck out his pouty lower lip to softly blow it away, which elicited a guffaw of laughter from John. Sherlock smiled and surged up from his cross-legged position in one fluid motion.

'I better show you your room. You look knackered. You can sleep a few hours and freshen up for dinner.'

He turned around and started up the lawn. He was wearing wide off-white linen trousers that were a bit too large for him and sat low on his hips.

They entered the house through the patio doors and John found himself in a large room tiled with red terracotta flags. Sherlock's bare-foot steps made no noise. The wainscoting and furniture were antique and well waxed, made of shimmering dark woods, and there was a portrait above the central fire place showing a man, in his forties maybe, leaning with his back against a writing desk, who bore a striking resemblance to Mycroft. John studied it, fascinated.

'My father,' Sherlock said. 'I never knew him. I was born a month after he was assassinated on his post. This was my mother's childhood home and her refuge. She missed him for nearly thirty years and then she died.'

'I'm sorry,' said John. 'What do you mean on his post? What did he do?'

'He was in the diplomatic service. It was his first station as a full ambassador in India. Didn't take two weeks for some radical opposition group to take offence.'

'My God. I didn't know.'

'You would have been a child at the time.'

'What about your childhood?' John asked, using the momentum. Sherlock had never been forthcoming with details about his life before John. 'Did you grow up here?'

'No, I grew up in my father's house in Berkshire. Mummy left when I was about a year old. She came for visits, but she couldn't really stand to be near us. She couldn't bear to look at Mycroft, because he looked so much like him,' he made a vague gesture towards the painting, 'and she could barely tolerate me because I was the reason she hadn't been with him when he died.'

'I am so sorry,' John said again. Sherlock shrugged.

Then he said, 'She wasn't... She tried, you know. It wasn't her fault.'

For years John had wondered about Sherlock's youth. He knew nothing apart from what he'd found in the papers at the time Moriarty had made his move to discredit Sherlock. He'd read about Sherlock being expelled from Cambridge and Oxford due to his unruly behaviour. Blown-up chemistry labs and hacked computers. Two brushes with the law due to drugs. Everything was blown out of proportion and twisted to make it look the worst it possibly could. And who even knew if all that stuff was true?

They went upstairs. The house was very still, but the silence didn't feel oppressive. Sherlock showed him to a room, small but nicely furnished, with a view across the lawn. The windows were open, the curtains fluttering softly in the light sea breeze. His case had already been unpacked and rested in a corner next to an open wardrobe displaying his clothes.

'This room shares a bath with the one next to it,' Sherlock said, opening the door to a small ensuite bathroom. 'Forgetting to lock the door to the next guest room has led to embarrassing encounters in the past, but it's not occupied at the moment, so don't worry.'

He seemed at a loss what to say next and just stood and looked at John in this new unfamiliar surrounding, then shook his head and left.

John looked around, then sat on the bed to untie his shoes. A long bath would be nice while he planned his strategy. Small advances into the desired direction followed by a slow retreat, if he met with any resistance on Sherlock's part, seemed the best way to go. His quarry was proud, shy and fleet of foot and he mustn't spook him.

After a long and relaxing soak he dressed in fresh clothes and lay down to doze until the light outside became dim and the breeze quite chilly. It began to rain. He closed the window and glanced at his watch which showed it was half past seven already.

John wandered downstairs and found Sherlock in the sitting room, curled up on the sofa before the roaring fire, reading. 'There you are,' he said, looking up. 'Dinner?' He smiled.

'Starving,' said John, smiling back.

The adjacent dining room was lighted by lots of candles, smelling of beeswax and honey. 'Sorry 'bout that,' Sherlock said, raising his hands in a helpless gesture. The bandages were gone and his hands mostly healed, but there were still deep bruises circling his wrists. 'There are no electric light fixtures in this room. My mother firmly believed in candlelight dinners.'

The table was laid for them and John sat down, the intimate atmosphere reminding him of their first dinner at Angelo's. Sherlock's face looked young and soft in the flickering light. As soon as they were seated the maid appeared to serve them. Sherlock addressed her in fluent French – well, of course.

'So, who looks after all this when neither of you is here?' John asked, tasting the creamy soup de crevette (according to the maid).

'Barbe and her husband,' said Sherlock, not eating, but fiddling with his spoon. 'There was more staff when my mother still lived here, of course, but now the house is seldom used. A few of our French cousins spend their holidays here now and then. Mycroft never comes here when he can avoid it. He's not too fond of this side of the family. I love it, but I haven't been here since the funeral either.'

'Which was when?' John asked.

'The year before we met,' said Sherlock as Barbe announced the next course.

It consisted of grilled lotte-de-mer and a salad made of herbs and... flowers? as well as crusty white bread. With it came a chilled Sancerre rosé, tasting of fruits and blossoms and slightly of earth and minerals. John was in effect rather a beer drinker, but Sherlock had introduced him to fine wines which were the only alcoholic beverage he occasionally consumed.

John smiled to himself as he admired the economic elegance of Sherlock filleting his fish. He had missed this, he thought. Oh God, how he had missed this, the two of them in a setting that spelled home.

'So, why bees?' he asked.

Sherlock took a sip of wine. 'Interesting creatures, bees,' he said. 'Bees don't have much brain, of course, but they sustain one of the most intricate languages in the animal kingdom. You probably know that bees communicate the precise direction and distance of a food source in the choreography of a dance. Scientists have known of the bee's dance language for more than seventy years. But no one knows how they do it. Bees are able to triangulate as well as any civil engineer. The dance of the honeybee conveys concise, quantitative information in an abstract, symbolic way.'

John nodded.

'Now you have perhaps also heard about a set of geometric problems associated with an esoteric mathematical concept known as the flag manifold. In the jargon of mathematics, manifold means space. A manifold can have two dimensions like the surface of a screen, four dimensions like the space-time of our Einsteinian universe, or even ten or a hundred dimensions. The flag manifold happens to have six dimensions. If you make a two-dimensional outline of the six-dimensional flag manifold, you wind up with a hexagon. The bee's honeycomb, of course, is also made up of hexagons, but there's a more explicit connection. A group of objects in the flag manifold, when projected onto a two-dimensional hexagon, form curves precisely matching the bee's recruitment dance.'

'I... see,' John said, although he wasn't sure he did.

'The flag manifold also happens to be useful to physicists in solving some of the mathematical problems that arise in dealing with quarks. The manifold's presence both in the mathematics of quarks and in the dance of honeybees cannot be a coincidence. The universe is rarely so lazy. Rather I suspect that the bees are somehow sensitive to what's going on in the quantum world of quarks, that quantum mechanics is as important to their perception of the world as sight, sound, and smell. There's some research to support the view that bees are sensitive to effects that occur only on a quantum-mechanical scale. Perhaps bees possess some ability to perceive not only light and magnetism but quarks as well.'

'Aha,' said John, lost entirely to the subject matter, but enjoying immensely Sherlock holding forth.

'Now here's the rub: the flag manifold geometry is an abstraction. It is useful in describing quarks not as single coherent objects that physicists can measure in the real world, but as unobserved quantum fields. Once a physicist tries to detect a quark - by bombarding it with another particle in a high-energy accelerator for instance - the flag manifold geometry is lost. If bees are using quarks as a script for their dance, they must be able to observe the quarks not as single coherent objects but as quantum fields. That means that bees are probably able to touch the quantum world of quarks without breaking it.'

'Christ,' John said. 'I had no idea. When Mycroft said you were doing something with bees, I thought of apiary.'

Sherlock shrugged. 'As you would. But it's a bit more complex than 'How does the honeybee find home'.'

'How and when will you find home?' John asked, catching on the opportunity.

Sherlock put down his cutlery with a clang! 'What home?' he spat. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and breathing heavily. After a while he calmed down and opened his eyes again.

'I'm sorry. I know I have no right to expect... It's just that all this time I thought I could come home again. That everything would be back to the way it was. Baker Street, you, the work. Mycroft warned me that it was possible I wouldn't be welcome any more. That everyone had moved on. That there was no place for me. I didn't believe him. I wish I had.'

'You would've been wrong,' John said.

'Anyway, there was a job offer from MI6 for some undercover work in Eastern Europe, but Mycroft wouldn't let me take it. So, now I'm retired. I'll stay here and research bees and quantum mechanics. Probably die of boredom. Hopefully soon.'

John smiled affectionately. Oh, the drama! He had missed the drama. 'Sherlock, you're thirty one, you can't retire.'

Sherlock arched his eyebrows in a look that said, 'See me retiring!'

'Oh well,' John said. 'Then I better brush up on my French. Hardly remember a thing from my school days.'

'What do you mean?'

John shrugged. 'You retire, I retire. I suppose I can hire a room or a small flat somewhere in the village.'

Sherlock stared at him and swallowed. 'But what about...?' he asked softly.

'Mary? History.'

'I don't understand,' Sherlock said. 'You were going to marry her, you said.'

'I didn't understand either, not at first. But it occurred to me, when I thought about it during these last days, that I couldn't marry her. Because I already am in a committed relationship. And I don't cheat.'

'You are...'

John put his cutlery down and very slowly and deliberately placed his right hand on Sherlock's left wrist which was resting on the table.

'We are a couple, Sherlock. Irene Adler was right. Everyone could see it. When you were... dead, everybody treated me like a widower. Because I was. We've been a couple from the start.'

Sherlock stared at John's hand on his own, then raised his eyes to John's face. His eyes looked almost black in the candlelight and his face was entirely blank. He blinked slowly, like a turtle that wasn't quite sure whether it wanted to be inside its shell or out.

'Problem?' John asked helpfully and let his thumb rub little circles on the back of Sherlock's hand.

Then Barbe came in and cleared the table and John wilfully left his hand where it was. She didn't show any reaction other than a slight twitch at the corners of her mouth. There was a small assortment of cheeses for dessert and strawberries and very strong coffee. When she left again, John finally took his hand away. 'So?' he said.

Sherlock looked at him. 'I don't understand,' he said again.

'You're a genius. You'll figure it out,' said John. 'I can imagine why you like them. The bees. They're like you. They see things no one else can.'

After dinner they retired to the living room again. They didn't talk about that thing between them, there from the start though never acknowledged, and now humming like a life wire. Instead Sherlock took up his violin, playing something slow and sweet, evocative of sunlit gardens, bird song and humming bees.

'I've never heard that one before,' John said when it ended.

'I composed it for my mother when I was much younger,' Sherlock answered. 'To remind her of her home here. I thought she'd stay with us, if she didn't miss it so much. It didn't really work out.'

How could John have been so blind? How could he not have realised that someone playing with such passion, such feeling must have something inside to draw from?

When he fell asleep that night it was to the familiar muted tones of Sherlock's violin played downstairs.

*****

When John came downstairs the next morning, Sherlock wasn't up yet, so he wandered around and explored the house. He visited Barbe, who was busy in a large old-fashioned kitchen with lots of shiny copper pans hanging from the rafters. She greeted him with a waterfall of French, then pressed a large cup of milky coffee into his hands and shooed him out. He found his way into a library of sorts which also served as a music room as there was a concert grand piano in one corner upon which rested Sherlock's violin.

Above the piano hung a painting showing a family. The man from the painting in the sitting room sitting at the piano, with a slender dark-haired woman holding a violin – Sherlock's violin! - standing in the curve of the instrument. Next to his father on the bench sat a little boy – Mycroft! - absorbed in a book.

So that was Sherlock's family, John thought. Sherlock hadn't even been born at the time this had been painted, as Mycroft was tiny, perhaps just five years old. He favoured his father, while Sherlock looked like his mother. Same hair, eyes, mouth. Mycroft had said that they shared a similar temperament. He wondered if the same was true about Mycroft and his father. Holmes senior didn't look like a man detached from his family, but who knew.

'Oh, here you are,' Sherlock said and John jumped.

'Damn, you startled me,' he began, turning around and doing a double take.

Sherlock wore knee long breeches made of a dark blue material. And a silky white shirt. This one had... ruffles? John couldn't help it, he doubled over with laughter. 'You... you look like something out of the Musketeers!' he snorted. 'Where did you get these clothes?'

Sherlock shrugged. 'There are chests and chests of them in the attic. Perfectly serviceable, if a bit out of fashion. What does it matter, if you don't go outside?'

'Yes. Fine. But why are you wearing them?'

Sherlock looked a bit uncomfortable at that. 'I forgot my suitcase.'

'There was no packed suitcase left behind in Baker Street.'

'Because I forgot to pack it.'

Ah. 'So, when did you leave?' John asked, seeing a dressing gown-clad Sherlock flitting through Heathrow airport in his mind's eye. Probably barefoot.

Sherlock turned around and wandered towards the French windows. 'Right after you left,' he said, opening one sash and stepping outside. Following, John caught up with him as he wandered down the lawn towards the hives. The weather was not as warm as yesterday and the nightly rain had left the grass silvery-wet.

'They do look happy in that painting, your family,' John said, falling into step at Sherlock's side.

'They were, according to Mycroft. They were loving parents, he said. And then, when he was seven, it all fell apart. He really had it worse than me. I never knew. What it was like... before.'

John had never contemplated Mycroft as a little boy. In his mind he had sprung, fully formed, in a three-piece suit and with an umbrella, from some filing cabinet in a government building.

'So, you think it's worse having had something and missing it than never having had it in the first place?' he asked.

'I should think so,' Sherlock said slowly. 'How can you miss what you don't know?'

They arrived at the hives and Sherlock stood, staring at them. 'John, about what you said yesterday...' he began.

'Yes?'

'About us being a couple. You were right. We've been in a partnership all along. That's what it was. A working partnership. And... and I would very much like for it to go on. It... it did work very well, didn't it? It could work, even if you would marry Mary.'

'Yes,' said John. 'But that wasn't what I meant.'

Sherlock shot him a quick glance from under lowered lashes. 'What did you mean?'

'I meant couple in a private sense. A life partnership, if you will. That's why I left Mary. That's why I said I don't cheat. I wasn't about to set up a business with her, you know.'

Sherlock turned to him. 'Life – But why would you even want that? With me?'

John looked straight into his eyes. 'Because I love you, you twat!' he barked.

Sherlock jerked back. 'Oh, please,' he sneered. 'You don't even like me that much.'

'Why would you think that?' John asked, taken aback.

'You said so yourself. Many times. And on your blog. That I'm not even human. That I'm a machine. You do not like a machine. You use it.'

'God, Sherlock!' No wonder he hadn't thought twice about what his death would do to anyone.

'I don't mind. I don't mind being used in a way I'm comfortable with.'

'You think I just used you?' John asked, feeling more horrified by the minute.

'Doesn't everyone? Mycroft, the Met, everyone uses my brain. So, why shouldn't you?'

'Jesus Christ, Sherlock! No one has the right to just use you. And I certainly didn't.'

'Of course you did. And I used you right back.'

'Used me as what?' John asked.

'Back-up, sounding board, conductor of light...' Sherlock said the last word mockingly.

John shook his head. 'Why do you think I want to be with you?'

'Because you like the excitement,' Sherlock answered without pause. 'You're drawn to dangerous people and situations. You can't go back to being a soldier, so I'm the next best thing. And you like to help people, to be useful, but just being a doctor is too boring for you. So, yes, we're ideally suited to one another!' He gave John a hopeful smile.

'You're right. We are. But there's more to it and we have to address that.' Bit uncomfortable that, John thought, but necessary. And if he didn't man up and faced the facts, Sherlock certainly wouldn't.

'Sentiment?' Sherlock asked, raising one haughty eyebrow. 'I don't do sentiment. You know that. High-functioning sociopath. You agreed. Remember?'

'Well, I was wrong! And so are you. You're fucking rubbish at being a sociopath, Sherlock! No sociopath would have done what you did. That was brave. That was selfless. You sacrificed yourself for us. You do feel!' John poked him in the chest with his forefinger. 'And don't you tell me otherwise!'

Sherlock looked down at his bare feet in the grass and wiggled his toes. John could see the tips of his ears flushed with pink.

'I'm getting cold feet,' Sherlock said and turned abruptly, wandering back towards the house.

I bet you do, John thought, following slowly. As declarations of love went this one hadn't been a big success. Well, it wasn't as if he had much practice with that sort of thing.

The morning was too chilly for breakfast outside, so they sat down in the kitchen to café au lait and croissants with an assortment of jams and honey while Barbe was occupied elsewhere in the house.

Sherlock tore a croissant apart without eating it. 'You've always chided me about not caring,' he said, his eyes downcast. 'But human nature being what it is, there will always be crimes. Murders, kidnappings, robberies. Why is it so bad that I enjoy finding a solution to things that are wrong? Or that I prefer crimes executed with a modicum of intelligence? That's what they need me for, after all. And I work so much better, if I can distance myself. Sentiment is... distracting. And if I can't work, who am I? The work is the only thing about me anyone cares about. Even my brother says that I don't belong to myself, because my brain is a national asset. I am my brain. There's nothing else.'

'That is such bullshit!' John said with passion, throwing his croissant back on his plate. 'If no one would care about you apart from your giant brain – which admittedly is an amazing thing – why did your loss hit us so hard? Mrs Hudson dissolving into tears every time we met, Lestrade drinking too much and starting to smoke again? Mike Stamford set up an online obituary and condolence list for you! And I... it nearly killed me, Sherlock. There were times, I swear...' he interrupted himself. Sherlock watched him wide-eyed. 'Do you really think we only mourned the loss of your intellect? Angelo displayed your photo with a mourning band above our table, I've been told. Dozens of people have written to the Yard, setting them straight about you not being a fake. There's grafitti all over London with your name, telling the whole world you were the real thing. You have touched so many people, Sherlock.

'And if you truly didn't care you'd have told Moriarty to fuck off, snipers be damned. You could've taken him down and attended our funerals. Oh, what a pity, but sadly unavoidable. Would've made your life a whole lot easier these last two years, wouldn't it?'

Sherlock looked sickened. 'Don't say that. I don't want to think of it.'

'Ha!' said John. 'And why's that? Tell me!'

'It... hurts,' Sherlock admitted, unconsciously rubbing his chest as if in physical pain.

'See. That's sentiment. That's caring. It does hurt sometimes, but it can also feel good. You said you missed me. Why?' John asked.

'Because you watch my back. Because I can think better when I'm talking to you, though I don't know why that is. Because you tell me that I'm amazing, when I do what I do. You tell me when I'm wrong, but you don't sneer at me and you don't call me a freak. You go away when you don't like the way I behave, but that's all right, because most people can't stand being around me at all. And you always come back. I like your tea. You're... my home.'

So this was what it took to win Sherlock's undying devotion. A little friendliness and tea.

'I make pretty good tea,' John agreed, his heart breaking. 'I missed you, too, you know. Not the work, not the excitement – though I like those, I admit – just you. I missed the experiments in the kitchen, the violin playing at three in the night, the way you insult everyone. All the things I find most annoying about you.'

Sherlock looked sceptical. John took his hand and held it in both of his. Sherlock stiffened, but didn't resist him.

'And I'd rather have you, being the wanker that you are, than a totally lovely, understanding woman who loves me and whom I've probably treated like shit. What does that tell you, hm?'

Sherlock eyed their joined hands and asked almost belligerently, 'Why are you doing this? You've never... touched me like this before.'

'I'm trying to show you affection, you bloody idiot. Should've done that a long time ago.'

Sherlock looked amused. 'You're showing me affection by holding my hand?'

'Well, yes. I'm sorry, I'm no good at this,' John said, letting go.

'No, it's... it's fine.'

'I find it difficult, this stuff,' John said. 'But I want you to know...'

'Know what?'

'What you mean to me.'

'I have to think about that,' Sherlock said. He got up and left the kitchen. 'I don't know what you want of me, John,' he said over his shoulder when he reached the door.

'You're a detective, I've heard! Deduce it!' John called after him and finished his breakfast alone.

Left to his own devices John spent the day exploring the small town of Saint-Renan. The sun fought its way through the clouds while he wandered the cobblestoned streets with their historical buildings and then took a light lunch on the marquee-shaded terrace of the only hotel's restaurant. He could live here, if he had to, he thought. But he doubted it would come to that. Sherlock Holmes and London were a couple as much as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, perhaps even more so, in the end.

When he returned to the house in the afternoon, he found Sherlock at the beehives again. This time he trusted their inhabitants' good will and sat down beside him. Sherlock gave him a short look from under lowered lashes, but kept silently working on his tablet. The screen was covered in equations and hexagonal patterns. The flag manifold, perhaps. Or just honeycombs.

Faithful to his decision not to spook his friend with concepts he might as yet not be willing to contemplate, John kept silent, too, just enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun on his back and Sherlock's company. The bees swarmed around them, minding their own business.

'So,' Sherlock said after a while, 'if I were to return home with you, we basically would go on as before?'

'Yes,' said John, 'if you want to. But I'd like you to know that you're not just a deduction machine providing excitement for me.'

Sherlock hummed. 'What am I then?' he asked.

John contemplated the question carefully. 'You're my friend who gave up his life for me,' he said slowly. 'My best friend who came back to me from the dead. You're my future. I won't lie to you, there may be girlfriends again, because I'm not like you, I can't sublimate my sex drive into my work or something. But they won't mean a thing as far as you and I are concerned.'

When Sherlock didn't say anything, John ventured to add, 'Or we could take a new direction.'

Sherlock nodded slightly. 'And this new direction would involve... physical relations?' he asked.

'Only if we're both comfortable with it,' John assured him.

'What happened to 'I'm not gay'?' Sherlock asked.

'I don't know,' said John. 'It probably eloped with 'I'm a sociopath'.'

Sherlock grinned. 'Were they holding hands, do you think?'

'They were handcuffed together,' John chuckled and bumped Sherlock's shoulder with his own.

Sherlock was silent for a long time. Then he said, 'John, I've never felt an urgent need to join any part of my anatomy with anyone else's. But...'

'Yes?'

'I like it when you touch me,' Sherlock admitted.

John smiled. 'Then why don't we leave it at that for the time being? I don't want to push you. I just want to make sure you understand...' He hesitated, then took a deep breath. 'Look,' he continued, 'I have no idea where this new direction will take us. I just know I want to go wherever it may be with you.'

Sherlock looked at him, his face open and serious. He offered John his hand, palm up, and John took it in both of his and drew it to his chest.

'Then I will follow you,' Sherlock said.


End file.
